


Un vendredi dingue

by madame_faust



Series: The Jeromeverse [2]
Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: Body Swap, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Platonic Female/Male Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-08-09 21:04:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20123815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: Christine has very different and very important relationships with two men who despise each other - though they've never met one another. An idle wish on the evening star for mutual understanding brings more than she bargained for. A fill for Timebird84's 'Freaky Friday' prompt on Tumblr.





	1. Christine

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably going to be a three-parter, enjoy the setup!

With such a limited circle of intimates as Christine was inclined to maintain, one ought to think that squabbles among friends would be kept to a minimum. Especially friends who had never met - indeed, _refused_ \- to meet one another.

An observation below-ground that Erik might not have quite so low an opinion of the Vicomte de Chagny should he actually meet him and learn that he was in every way a gentleman was met with an icy silence and softly voiced, "No. I do not believe that is wise."

It would not be so irksome if only Erik trusted that maintaining a...well, very affectionate friendship with Raoul (could it be called a courtship if they could never marry?) would not affect her deep regard for him, nor their visits with one another. As it was, every time she mentioned dinner plans with the Vicomte or a vague notion that they might join one another for Mass, followed by a morning stroll along the Champs-Élysées or through the Tuileries he got a pained look in his yellow eyes and inevitably parted from her with an, "Adieu," which at first made her feel guilty, but now rankled. Just because she was spending some of her free time above-ground with Raoul, it did not mean she would not pass a pleasant evening with Erik below-ground. And any suggestion that he join them on their outings was met with silence, sighs, and declined invitations. 

"I am sure your Vicomte would not be pleased were I to act as chaperon," Erik once remarked sardonically.

Christine could say no more about it; it was true, after all. 

When once she sought Raoul's advice about the best way to broach the topic of having Erik round to Mamma's for a brief visit (Christine was a poor hand at the piano and thought it would cheer Mamma up to have the old instrument played by a Maestro), he visible bristled, drawing himself up ramrod-straight and looking over her shoulder into middle distance, as though she was his ship's captain who had just called him to attention.

"Is it...ordinary, then," he asked with a clipped tone. "For pupils to have their music teachers round for a drink?"

A _drink_? Christine raised one of her pale eyebrows and said, "Yes. I believe so. Mamma and the Professor used to entertain all sorts from the Conservatoire, before the Professor passed and Mamma's health began to decline."

"Mmm," Raoul replied and Christine, rather irked at his tone and insinuations, declined to continue the conversation. 

It was renewed a few days later when Christine had to decline Raoul's invitation to supper citing her voice lessons - really, it was not a lesson so much as it was an invitation to dine with Erik at his home beneath the Opera, but given Raoul's balking at having Erik to her home to entertain Mamma, she thought it unwise to disclose that she would be visiting Erik at his home without the rheumy eyes of an older lady upon them.

But Raoul insisted on pressing for more information. "When is your lesson over? I have no plans, we could make it a late night, if that suits you."

It was then Christine admitted that she was likely going to sup with Erik, at the conclusion of their lesson.

At that revelation, his mouth thinned to a harsh line beneath his mustache and he adopted that military bearing that she was coming to intensely dislike. 

"I know you feel sorry for him," Raoul said, prompting Christine to draw up into a rather military posture herself. "You've said he's a lonely old man, but you aren't his granddaughter or his nurse. You needn't put yourself out on his behalf."

Christine could not stop her mouth dropping open in shock. Either Raoul's memory was faulty or he was deliberately misquoting her. She never said Erik was a 'lonely old man.' When Raoul first learned of Erik's existence she believed she described him as a middle-aged man who lived alone. When Raoul pressed her for his exact age, she confessed she did not know exactly, but that he was likely between forty (he frowned at that) or fifty (he frowned rather less at that). Raoul asked if he was a widower and she said no, she did not believe he had ever married. Raoul then proceeded to exclaim, "A bachelor!" with the same tone others might gasp, "A murderer!"

Yes, a bachelor, but Christine was certain he had no designs upon her. He never behaved as such. He scarcely ever touched her and only now and then, to offer a gloved hand to lead her through the cellars or steady her ascent and descent from his curious gondola on the underground lake. When he spoke of women around the Opera, it was only in relation to their talent. 

And...well. She'd heard him speak softly and tenderly about one personage about the Opera. The Persian man that the ballet girls scurried away from every time he rounded a corner. He, she knew, was a visitor to the house below the cellars. And (Christine was a good Christian girl, but not an unworldly one), those visits were one reason why Christine would never guess that Erik was particularly lonely.

She certainly did not feel _sorry_ for him. Or, if she did have flashes of pity for the pain he had endured in his lifetime, they were brief and quickly dismissed, utterly overwhelmed by the pleasure of learning from him and sharing time with him. Honestly, she she did rather wish Erik would stop feeling so sorry for himself and venture out every once in a while. A bit of sunshine might help the sallow complexion of his hands and throat, anyway.

"I am not putting myself out," Christine insisted. "I enjoy his company! He's an interesting man, he tells the most fascinating stories, he knows everything about music, he's traveled everywhere - "

"I've traveled too," Raoul muttered glumly.

" - in _fact_," she persisted doggedly. "I think you would like him very much if you met. Which you have made abundantly clear to me that you have no desire to do. But you are not...you are not my husband, Raoul. And...and even if you _were_, it would be cruel to...to forbid me seeing Erik. And, I believe quite outside your character."

Raoul did not say anything. His cheeks went red and his mouth screwed up as though he were about to shout or cry. He inclined his head in a shallow bow and replied, "Very well, my dear. I see your attention and affections are engaged this weekend. Perhaps another time."

Part of her wanted to press his hand and apologize for speaking to him as she had - but that part was quickly suppressed by another that was still quite cross with Raoul for playing lord-of-the-manor with her. He was _not_ her husband. He would _never_ be her husband. He had no right to shrink her acquaintances to himself and his society chums who would smile and kiss her hand when they saw her, only to make her the subject of lewd commentary when she was gone from the room. Raoul and Erik were both respectful gentlemen with regards to herself; if only they would stop being so stubborn and _meet_ to learn that neither had anything to fear from the other.

"Perhaps another time," she replied, extending her hand in dismissal. Raoul bent over her fingers, a parody of polite parting. His lips never touched her gloved fingers.

That night, Christine made her way home alone, burning with frustration at Raoul and Erik both. If only they would stop being so unforgivably stubborn! It would bring her some peace of mind anyway, to say nothing of their own minds being put at ease. 

She performed her nightly ablutions, and by the time she had brushed and tied up her hair for bed, some of her anger had ebbed and she was feeling only rather tired. She knelt beside her bed to say her evening prayers and offer up the usual set for the souls of her mother, father, and Professor Valerius. She was just about to get up and crawl into bed for a well-deserved rest when a spark of movement across the night sky made her heart jump. A shooting star! 

Papa's voice sounded in her mind, an echo from time gone by. _Make a wish, sötnos._

Throwing open her window, the night breeze whipped around her, making the curtains fly about her shoulders like a magician's cape.

"I wish they could understand one another!" Christine declared into the night sky. "If only for a day!"

The North Star seemed to wink down at her and the man in the moon smiled. Christine smiled back. Then took herself to bed.


	2. Raoul

Raoul awakened feeling absolutely _terrible_. Even before he opened his eyes his neck was stiff, his shoulders throbbed, and his head pounded - not an unexpected consequence of a late night of too much drinking and not enough food, but an unwelcome one nevertheless.

Mistakes, like lies, tended to pile one on top of the other until his whole life was a miserable tangle. His first mistake had been speaking ill of Christine's vocal teacher; he knew, absolutely _knew_ it would prompt an argument, but the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. And then, rather than simply accepting that it was perfectly alright for Christine to have plans that did not involve him, he acted like a scorned lover in a penny dreadful and flounced out in a huff.

She was right; it was not in keeping with his character. At least, the character he aspired to have which did not include being nosy, petty, or prone to jealousy.

But might he not be jealous? The way Christine described her voice teacher - _Erik_ \- Raoul could not help but feel a green film pass over his eyes. She gave up precious little by way of physical description (middle-aged? by some standards Philippe was middle-aged that that did not prevent him from racking up a list of conquests as long as his arm), and so Raoul imagined the worst. A dashing musician, perhaps a little bit of dignified silver ghosting over the hair at his temples, keen intelligent eyes, and a smooth, clear voice. A Liszt for the latter half of the century. 

It was with this vague impression in his head of a handsome, debonair maestro, regaling Christine with tales of his youth as a traveling...well, concert pianist or solo violinist he had no doubt, that Raoul accepted Philippe's invitation to join himself and his cronies for a night of fun and revelry. 

Philippe may have regretted extending the invitation more than Raoul regretted accepting it. He spent most of the night in brown study, either replaying his conversation with Christine and imagining how he might have salvaged some of her regard or else imagining her inevitable conversation with Maestro Erik about his behavior. He imagined a knowing, triumphant smile spreading over the man's distinguished countenance as Christine described, first in frustration, then increasing humor, his ire over their dinner plans. He imagined them both laughing at him in an intimate dining room in a chic new restaurant. Or worse - in an elegantly appointed apartment in a quiet, tree-lined boulevard with none but the Maestro's servants for company...

His companions for the evening declared him a dullard, a bore and even the _chahut_ dancer who they insisted perch on his knee gave a little moue of affected disappointment when he seemed to have no inclination to do anything other than act as a chair for her.

Of course, things only truly turned sour when one of Philippe's friends - Antoine or André or somesuch - asked Raoul what 'his little Opéra tart' looked like. Blonde, brunette, or red-head? He proposed ordering up one who looked like her and -

The man had not got much past 'and' for Raoul's knuckles clumsily collided with the side of the man's head. It was a glancing blow, not enough make most men lose their balance, but Antoine-André howled as though he'd been given the beating of his life and insisted that Philippe remove his beastly younger brother from his presence immediately before he was forced to summon the gendarmerie.

It all became rather muddled after that. Philippe bundled him into a cab and, in a manner reminiscent of some of Raoul's less whimsical nurses in his youth, proceeded to lay into him over his demeanor, conduct, and his entirely unmanly and inappropriate fixation on the 'little Swedish chorus girl.' 

Raoul had far too much love and affection for his elder brother to strike him; still it was a near thing and tempered more by the fact that the lurching of the cab, combined with the contents of his stomach was making him ill than real restraint on his part. 

And now he was paying the price for all of it. Lying in bed, miserably sick. It was full dark in his room; his valet was having pity on him and had not roused him at his usual hour, nor drawn back the curtains to increase the pounding in his head with cheerful mid-morning sunlight. Raoul attempted to roll over and sleep off his gueule de bois, when his knee met with resistance as he turned. His head too felt boxed in and cramped, as though he was in a cot and not a proper bed. 

He opened his eyes to utter blackness. When he tried to reach out to part his bedcurtains, his hand met with that same peculiar resistance; not soft drapes, but a hard wall, softened with some kind of lining. 

Raoul sat up and the action made his head swim. He set his hands down to brace himself on the sides of the...bed?

Unable to see a bit in the darkness, his hands traced a path up and down the wooden walls at his sides. It felt like...but it couldn't...

An image conjured up from nightmares and memory stirred with him and set his heart to pounding as much as his head; a man, well into middle-aged, but handsome still with once-blonde hair gone all to white since he lost his wife in childbed twelve years prior. He was stiff and still, the wasted lines of illness on his face softened by candlelight. In the background, Raoul could hear his sisters weeping while Philippe pressed his shoulder hard with his hand and murmured, _'Stiff upper lip, now. Be a man. No tears where anyone can see.'_ Raoul never knew whether Philippe was speaking entirely for Raoul's benefit alone.

And what had his father been lying in? A box of polished wood, lined with silk, as though its occupant would care for comfort. _A coffin! _

Without thinking, Raoul clambered out, falling more than climbing over the side, onto a sort of raised plinth a few feet off the ground. It was onto the ground he fell with a clatter, for his arms and legs did not seem to want to obey him. There was still that curious aching in his knees, as though he'd spent the past few days in vigorous exercise and his neck and shoulders were stiff and sore - thought that could be understood as a consequence of sleeping in a thinly-lined wooden box rather than a proper bed.

Was this a joke? A prank? Had Antoine-André and the others seized him in the middle of the night and landed him in a coffin in the darkness as petty revenge? The lengths they had gone to seemed extreme, especially for a badly-dealt blow, even if it was to the head. A tiny, childish part of Raoul's mind was also hurt and dismayed that Philippe had to have known what they were about and _let_ them do such a thing to him.

If only he could see. It was black as pitch all about him with no lamp to penetrate the darkness. By reaching the end of the plinth, he managed to haul himself to his feet, but he had to stay still, gripping it for support for the sudden rising made his head swim. He closed his eyes and waited for the sensation to pass, then groped about with his fingers, trying to find - aha! A matchbook and a single candle, lying beside the coffin. 

His head was getting clearer; not a vengeful sort, nevertheless Raoul was conjuring all sorts of visions of what he might like to do to Philippe's friends (they had to have come in while Philippe was asleep, he must not have known, he wouldn't have condoned such childish foolishness if they'd mentioned their plans to him, they wouldn't) when he found his way out of the cupboard or cellar they'd secreted him away in. At least they left a match...

Raoul was so bent on obtaining light that he dismissed the feeling that there was something not quite right about his hands, the way they moved, the length of the fingers, the odd clumsiness that was overdone even after a night of strong drink. So too did he dismiss the sensation that he was not quite in proportion, that the ground seemed further away than it ought to, that there was something decidedly strange about the way his body felt. Dismissed, until he finally caught a spark and got a glimpse of his hands. 

The light guttered out before the match hit the floor, leaving Raoul in enveloping darkness again. His heart began to stutter against his ribs and he thought, _Am I dreaming?_

Those were not his hands. The spidery digits, a jaundiced-looking yellow in the flickering light of the match, were not his hands. They veins lay close to the surface, the fingers wrought of such thinness that they seemed little more than bone encased in skin, their length nearly superhuman. Raoul lay one of those thin hands against his stuttering heart - and at once drew them away as though the contact burned him. 

Through the material of his nightshirt he felt bone against bone, a thin layer of muscle over the top of prominent ribs; he'd felt the pat-pat-pat of the heart itself against his fingertips. 

_Dreaming_, he thought with desperate certainty._ Just dreaming. Wake up, now. Wake up!_

But he did not wake. Very well. See the dream - _the nightmare_ \- through.

Marie-Grace, one of his elder sisters, went in a bit for Spiritualism. She was not a total devotee, fonder of a séance given in the parlor as part of an evening's entertainment than to truly attempt to make a connection to the "other side." It was her new little pet hobby and she'd purchased a small library for herself of occultish tomes, charts that told one's future using the stars and books deciphering the meaning of dreams. 

To dream that one's teeth were falling out meant one was suffering from anxiety. To dream of flight meant you were unhappy in waking life. Most dreams, according to Marie-Grace bespoke unhappiness. What did it mean to dream one was a corpse?

This time Raoul's hands were rather steadier when he struck the match and he managed to lit the candle by the bedside. He closed his eyes again almost immediately; the bright flame sent a spark of pain reeling through his eyes into his head, but it gratefully went away as the light dimmed a bit. 

Yes, that was it; too many evening spent in Marie-Grace's sitting room around a repurposed card table. His mind would never have conjured up such a ghoulish spectacle otherwise. 

It appeared he was in a mortuary chamber, somber blacks and reds hung about the coffin like a parody of a bedchamber. There was a library-style organ along the far wall, a wooden table beside the bed where once the candle resided, and in the corner, a basin, pitcher and towel. 

Raoul approached the spot of ordinariness with some trepidation. Would his mind conjure up a sea creature from within the pitcher with which to do battle? That was much more in the spirit of his own outlandish dreams. But no. It was an ordinary pitcher with a little pattern of flowers drawn upon it. Bluebells, if he wasn't mistaken. 

_Right. Perhaps this is a piece of a puzzle to be solved before I wake_, he thought._ I hope I'm not sleepwalking._

He was prone to such when he was a child, ambling around the house like a little ghost, giving the servants a fright. Philippe used to catch him at it and, according to family legend, was the best by far at getting him back to bed with no fuss.

_Perhaps that's why I'm dreaming of being a corpse_, Raoul reasoned. _Consequences of waking a sleepwalker and all that._

As he made his way toward a door cut into the wood, he was once again conscious of that strange, off-balance sensation. The fact that his strides were longer, his arms were longer - taller. He was taller. Why? Just another piece of the puzzle.

Beyond the morgue-cum-bedroom there were a series of other rooms, though these might have been found in any modest home, though none of the rooms seemed to have any windows - what did a lack of windows signify in a dream? As he wandered he found a small kitchen, a parlor, a sort of workshop full of musical instruments in varying states of repair. A strong-looking locked door that Raoul noted in case it became important later. And a washroom.

It was tiled and appeared to have some rudimentary plumbing. Raoul only explore the space because it seemed strange - why dream of a washroom? He was certain he had never done so before. It was tiled in the modern style, held a bathtub, a sink...but no mirror. Strange. Potentially important - aha!

There was, in fact, a mirror, though it was not hung upon the wall. It was a shaving mirror on a long thin stand, tucked in the corner. The reason Raoul had not spied it from the first was because the glass was curiously facing away from him. 

It appeared to have been mended - or elongated. The metal bar had been cleanly cut and the stem added to with another piece of similarly-color, though not perfectly matching - brass. Raoul placed the candle upon the ledge of the sink and crouched to look at it, but stood almost at once. His knees popped painfully and he stood, bracing himself against the sink. 

Raoul approached the mirror, long bare feet starting to soak up some of the chill from the tile upon the floor and he wished for his valet and slippers most ardently. Still, he pressed on. A lack of windows and a mirror turned away - in addition to his valet, he also wished Marie-Grace had joined him in this subconscious venture to give him a clue how to wake himself. Perhaps the mirror would do it. Raoul reached out with one of his long, strange hands and turned the glass to pivot toward him.

It was a mercy he'd put the candle down already for surely he'd have dropped it in shock. A cry tore from his throat - an oddly musical, beautiful sound to be sure, but that was quickly forgotten in the face of the_ thing_ staring back at him from the glass.

Monstrous. Raoul had seen men after their passing. His father's wake was his earliest memory of viewing a corpse up close, but in the navy he had seen bodies in various stages of decomposition. Some truly horrifying, bloated, the skin peeling away from the bones after days of exposure to water. But nothing like this; the closest he'd come to seeing a face like the one that looked back at him, slack-jawed and terrified was at a display of Egyptian curiosities hosted by one of his sister's friend. They had a mummy that some grandfather had purchased, allegedly brought by to France by Napoleon himself.  
  
The thin, papery skin was very like that he had seen on the face of the mummy, buried two-thousand years ago. The eyes were similarly sunken in, though the eyes that looked at Raoul now were wide open, catching the light of the candle and reflecting back an eerie yellow glow. The lips were thin and drawn back from crooked teeth. But the mummy, (as one of the ladies had murmured so low he did not believe he'd been meant to hear her) might have been handsome when he was alive. He still boasted a fine Roman nose, thoughtfully preserved by the morticians with peppercorns stuffed up the nostrils. This skeletal face had no such attribute. Instead, an asymmetrical hole, divided down the center by a bit of bone or cartilage, made complete the horrifying picture.

Disgust gave way to curious fascination, Raoul leaned closer to look at the image conjured up by his imagination. Dark eyebrows, worn thin in patches. Sparse dark hair, mussed from sleep, thicker behind the ears and fading away to almost nothing upon the crown of the head. The closer he looked, the more little details he took in. A small perfectly round mole in the corner of the left eye. There was a misalignment in the top lip and scarring, as though a harelip had once been sewn up by a myopic surgeon. The ears were rather large and prominent and stuck out unattractively; that was the least of the head's concerns. 

Once he got over his alarm, Raoul was mildly impressed with himself. He was considered a bit naive and backward in his thinking and comportment by his brother, Marie-Grace thought him a bit of a dullard; never before would he have credited himself with such a feat of macabre imagination. Too bad he had no artistic skill at his disposal; he had a strong desire to draw the face, to set it down. It was ugly, but remarkably so.

_A memento mori for a head, Deus Irae on the curtains...what can it all mean?_

Certainly this dream indicated he was anxious over something. Nothing he had experienced so far contributed to his piece of mind. The washroom seemed to have no further secrets to yield (the taps worked and from their pipes spewed ordinary water - hot _and_ cold, which was quite something, evidently the extraordinary visage was the most his mind could manage before it succumbed to staunch practicality). Raoul continued his exploration of the house - when he was outside the room, he chanced an experimental jump, just to see if he might fly, but all he managed to do was get his knees aching again.

The place was frightfully cold - no surprise, given that Raoul was dreaming of being in a well-appointed tomb. When he saw a silk dressing gown folded over the back of an armchair in a room he took to be the library, he put it on. It was a little worn at the elbows, but lined inside to make it very soft and comfortable; the first bit of comfort he'd had since he became aware of his surroundings. 

A desk in the corner caught his eye. This was the first part of the house that seemed untidy and he thought it might be a clue (_disordered desk, disordered papers, disordered mind?_). Raoul was navigating a bit easier on those long legs now and the yellow eyes he was looking out of bore the light better, so he lifted one of the papers off the desk.

It was a letter, penned in a feminine script, but he was having a hard time reading it - the words were rather fuzzy to his eyes and he had to hold the paper devilishly close (one advantage to currently being without a nose) to make it out.

The date, sent a few weeks prior, was written in the upper right-hand corner of the page, but there was no address inside and no envelope Raoul could see on the desk. The letters did not change or move about as written words might in dreams, but he had to blink very hard to clear his vision and it was such a rough go that he nearly gave reading the thing up as impossible - then he spied two articles that he had not noticed before. First, a black mask intended to cover the face from brow to chin. Then, more useful to his current plight, a pair of spectacles. 

The wires over the bridge were bent at a severe angle, such that they appeared to be broken, but as Raoul looped the frames around his over-large ears, he realized it had been done to make them adhere more forcefully to the snubbed bridge of what remained of the nose. 

At once his vision sharpened and the letters were much easier to decipher. Raoul pulled out the desk chair and sat to read.

** _My Dear Jérôme,_ **

**_I have not had a reply to my last and worry that something might have happened to you. I know you have told me many times that you are not a faithful correspondent, but please do send me some little reply that you are well. I cannot help but worry a bit, about your being all alone in that big city. I know you have lived alone many years, but _**(here the writing was smudged with an effort to blot out and erase whatever had been written and Raoul couldn't make heads nor tails of it)**_ I nevertheless become anxious when I go too long without hearing from you. It needn't be much, a postcard will do._**

** _I hope you have given my invitation some thought. It would be no trouble at all to put you up, even during my confinement; Maurice and myself would be happy to have you. The closest hotel is, as you know, a bit of a slog. Please send me a reply soon. I sincerely hope all is well._ **

** _Yours,_ **  
** _Émilie _ **

Raoul read the short missive twice, then set it aside, perplexed. For the life of him, he could not recall a single acquaintance who went by either name. He picked up some of the crumbled papers from the floor; all appeared to be replies to this 'Émilie,' begun, then abandoned. They all began the same way, assuring the woman in question of the subject's continued health, followed with admonishments not to worry, then a series of regrets to the invitation to visit. This was where the replies differed. Though rejection was consistent, the reasons given were not. 

** _My health prevents me from traveling._ **  
** _Business keeps me in the city._ **  
** _I am sure it will be too much trouble for yourself and your husband._ **  
** _The inconvenience it will cause you will not be worth whatever pleasure you imagine my company will bring you._ **  
** _Although yourself and your husband might be willing to receive me, your neighbors might not look so kindly upon your spectral visitor._ **  
** _I am no physician, but know from personal experience that any upset visited upon an expecting mother, however seemingly slight, could have disastrous results._ **

Raoul was about to give up the letters as a hopeless cause in moving this dream toward its conclusion when he saw, among the papers on the desk, a note written in a hand he recognized. _Christine!_

Finally, it appeared he was making progress! It was all making sense now: this dream was his subconscious's attempt to remind him how curt and unfair he had been to her when last they parted and to encourage himself to make amends. He looked like a ghoul because her heart's feelings toward him might waste away, leaving him a funereal husk of a man. Yes, it was all fitting together nicely._  
_

And yet, the note that he thought would bring clarity only carried with it more questions. For the note was not addressed to him. It was addressed to _Erik_.

** _Erik -_ **

** _I am so sorry to cancel our lesson today, but I feel a frightful cold coming on. I do hope this reaches you before you make the preparations for supper. I told little Meg Giry to give it to her mother to leave for you, but she can be a flighty little thing. I shall rest this upcoming weekend and look forward to seeing you (yes, really!) on Tuesday. _ **

** _Yours,_ **  
** _Christine_ **

The heart started its clanging tattoo in his chest again. Raoul set the letter down with a shaking hand. He rose from the chair, the prior ease with which he manipulated this gangly body gone. The aches and pains were less, but still present; one ought not feel pain in a dream, he recalled. Raoul wandered around the room, looking at the books upon the shelves. Some French. English. German. Russian, he thought, and other languages the script of which he did not recognize. Many, many librettos and reams of sheet music. There was some open on the small upright piano which sat in the corner of the library. "Caro nome che il mio cor," from _Rigoletto_. A title Raoul would not have recognized, had Christine not brought it up recently as being a piece that she was having difficulty with. The paper was covered with notes in the same hand that wrote so many abandoned letters to the woman Émilie. 

_This is not a dream_, Raoul thought numbly, legs getting weak, forcing him to sit at the piano. Sweat collected at his brow line and Raoul daubed at the thin flesh, then drew his hand away at once.  
  
"Dear, _God_ \- "

He spoke the words aloud and jumped. The house was so silent, though he had not spoken loudly, the sound was clear, audible...beautiful. So, beautiful. As he scarcely thought a man's voice_ could_ be beautiful.

Erik. The musician. The voice teacher. Erik, who Raoul imagined to be his rival. This..._this_ was Erik's home? This cold, silent, windowless dwelling? 

And _this_...Raoul looked down at the bony knees, covered by the dressing gown. The veiny, hands limply dangling from thin wrists. And when he remembered the face, he shuddered.

There was no puzzle to solve. No way to come to a sudden realization and snap himself out of sleep - _for he was not asleep_. Somehow, he was here, he was..._this thing_. Had he wondered about Christine's teacher? Hadn't he wanted to know more about him? To know what he was competing with? Was this divine comeuppance for his attitude toward her? His sin of envy? 

_You wanted to know what you were up against - here you are_, Raoul thought miserably. _And if _you_ are _he_, then _he_ is _you_. And he has _every_ advantage._


	3. Erik

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is going to go on for at least one more chapter - I think they need to have a nice, long talk, don't you?

_Birdsong._

He knew something was wrong before he opened his eyes. Before he was properly awake. Merely the fact _of_ waking was disturbing in its difficulty. Sleep eluded him at the best of times, was an infrequent visitor to his bed and a flighty one at that, always coming and going. It had gotten worse the older he'd become.

The Daroga had some very scientific explanation, living below-ground addling his mind so he didn't know whether he was coming or going, let alone what hour of the day it was. When _decent_ sort of people ought to be bundled away to bed while he was up half the night frittering away on some task or other. Deep, untroubled slumber was a stranger to him. 

The difficulty in coming to consciousness would have been enough on its own, nevermind the twittering of birds, the sounds of a busy street below, the unfamiliar sensation of a featherbed beneath his back, then the roiling in his middle that jolted him into consciousness with just enough warning that he was able to throw himself over the side of the aforementioned bed to be sick into a thoughtfully-positioned basin on the floor. 

Three thoughts occurred to him simultaneously as he felt another spasm burn up his throat as he was sick again:

This was not his home. This was not his bed. This was not his _body_.

The hand with the short, blunt fingers that he used to brace himself against the floor was not his. The tousled blonde hair falling over the eyes that burned and teared were not his. And the voice that groaned involuntarily, hoarse and miserable, was _certainly_ not his.

When at last his insides stopped churning he wiped the foreign mouth with the sleeve of a fine silk shirt as he lay back on the bed, feeling sweat trickling down his temples, down his back. First thing was to close his eyes and gather himself so that he could think properly. The second was to assess exactly where he was - _who_ he was could come later. As for how he'd gotten into this predicament? Well, he'd lived too long and seen too much to pursue that particular rabbit down its hole. Better off not knowing, he was sure. 

But all his well-laid plans came crashing down when the door to the unfamiliar bedroom opened and a man announced himself with an understated little cough. 

"Is there anything I can acquire for you, sir?"

The man was nondescript, of middling height with a neat, trim, not overly fashionable appearance. _Valet_.

"Tea," Erik managed in the stranger's voice. Hopefully the valet would ascribe any difference in address or inflection to the hangover. "With ginger and lemon. If possible."

The valet gave a short nod - almost imperceptible hesitation, there - but he shimmered out the door thoughtfully taking the basin of sick with him. That left Erik properly alone, which was all he wanted (though he'd not say no to a cup of tea, if it came to that). 

Warily, he sat up, surveying the room. It was large, for a bedroom in the city, but the noise from the street assured him that he had not been suddenly relocated to some godforsaken country manor. A townhouse, a very large townhouse...the height of the ceilings, the moldings, and the wide floorboards convinced him that the home dated to the reign of the first Napoleon, though the paper was new, the paint fresh and the room itself modern as could be - a cast-iron radiator in the corner caused him to raise his borrowed eyebrows in appreciation. Pity about the damage done to the antique floors, but better than freezing in elegant grandeur. 

'Grandeur' might be a bit overdone. Though the bed was comfortable, the home well-maintained, and obviously well-staffed, the room he was in was curiously bare of ornament. There were a few daguerreotypes displayed on a desk, a ship in a bottle with sun-bleached sails upon the mantle, a large sea-chest sat at the end of the bed, and most prominently, a mid-sized portrait hung upon the wall. This Erik studied more closely than the rest of the room: it displayed a handsome young man, two nearly identical tow-headed girls of thirteen or fourteen in likely the last portrait which rendered them in short skirts, and a very small child with long blonde curls and a simple frock staring solemnly out at the viewer with a more doleful expression than one might expect from one so young.

Odd that it would have been secreted away in a bedroom, but perhaps it was to do with the queer dour look of the youngest child; a bit too unpleasant to show to guests. There was something about the eldest - a bit too round and red of cheek, eyes a bit too blue and earnest, but Erik was sure he recognized him from somewhere about. He'd never been one to forget a face. 

Trusting himself to stand, Erik did so, briefly steadying himself upon the bedpost to adjust his center of gravity; this body was shorter and stockier than that which he'd been dragging about the earth for over forty years. It had been put to bed in its evening clothes, though the tie, collar, cuffs, and jacket had been abandoned and were nowhere to be seen. Eager to divest himself of the uncomfortable silk shirt, stained with sweat and sick, Erik opened the door to the armoire and was startled by what he saw reflected in the glass laid into the door.

The pale face, bloodshot eyes, and disheveled countenance of the Vicomte de Chagny looked at him. At first, the expression was startled, the one people wore when they bumped into an acquaintance unexpectedly on the street. Then wickedly mirthful. Before Erik could stop himself, he erupted into laughter, loud and full, despite his deficiency of voice. He clasped one of the Vicomte's square, sturdy hands over his wide, smiling mouth, feeling the bristles of his mustache against his palm. 

It didn't do to be giddy, but what an excellent cosmic prank! As an illusionist himself (retired), he could appreciate the irony. The humor in the thing. Why, Christine had turned down supper with the Vicomte to dine with him (Erik might have needled her about it a bit too pathetically than suited his age and experience) and now here he was in the Vicomte's borrowed silks, while the Vicomte...

As the full import of the situation settled in his mind, Erik lost all his impulse to laugh or appreciate the little touch of irony the universe had seen fit to throw his way. Oh, no. This would never do. This would never do at _all_. 

Good things simply did not _happen_ to him. Nothing came _easily_. It never occurred to him that this state of affairs might be permanent. Sooner or later, the Vicomte would doubtless claim his charmed life again. If he was even now jolting into consciousness in Erik's home beyond the lake...there were securities to consider. All sorts of pitfalls about for the ignorant to blunder into. Not to mention the Siren...

Erik had no particularly regard for himself - his body, that was. Obvious, looking back at the long years he (or others!) had abused it. But if he was to be returned to it sometime in the near future, he would prefer not to awaken in a body with a broken neck.

The door opened. The valet was back, with tea on a tray, along with toast points and an egg. Erik ignored the latter, but seized and drank down the former in all due haste, not minding how it burned his raw throat going down - for it was not _his_ throat, was it?

The valet remained standing by during this display, steadfast and stone-faced (though the facade cracked a bit when Erik evidently behaved in an out of character manner for the Vicomte and wiped his mouth again on the formerly clean sleeve of the now ruined shirt). "Sir?"

"That will be all, thank you," Erik said, attempting to moderate his tone into something pleasant and not snappish. He cast his mind about trying to think of how the Vicomte comported himself when he was about the Opera. Truthfully, Erik had not marked his appearance much, until it all came to light that the little boy who passed blissful summers with his dear Christine and the Comte's younger brother were one in the same. Then Erik instantly disliked him, though, objectively there was little to dislike about the Vicomte's presentation of self, in public. He was quiet. Shy, it was said about the Opera, almost unmanfully so. When he was brought round to the dancers' lounge by his brother, he seemed to find nothing in the world more interesting to look at than the tips of his shoes, went very red about the face and neck, and usually found an excuse to leave early. 

The sort of man, Erik fancied, who would say 'please' and 'thank you,' to his servants. Unfortunately, the Vicomte's valet did not seem to understand that 'thank you', in this case, was just as much a dismissal as it was an expression of gratitude. The breakfast tray was laid down and the man eyed the armoire prospectively. "You wished to go out, sir?"

"Yes - " Erik began, about to follow the affirmative with a more clear dismissal, but the Vicomte's valet was preternaturally swift. No sooner had Erik announced his intention to leave than the man suddenly had a tweed morning suit at the ready and was fussing with the pearl buttons upon Erik's shirt.

Unfortunately for both of them, the valet was not the only one with uncannily quick reflexes. Nothing startled Erik so much as being touched unexpectedly. Nothing was so unpleasant. It was not a _violent_ shove, not by his own standards, but nevertheless, a second after the valet's quick and efficient hands came within a hair's breath of Erik's throat, both suit and valet found themselves summarily deposited on the floor. Accompanied by a shrill skidding sound as the momentum dragged him back a few feet.

Erik recovered before the valet.

"Oh, I'm so terribly sorry!" he said, hands all a-flutter as he dropped any pretension of behaving as the Vicomte might and instead affecting all the wide-eyed harmless clumsiness of a generic upper-class twit. "I don't know _what's_ come over me. Are you _quite_, alright, poor fellow?"

He offered a hand up to the poor chap, a hand which was ignored as the valet rose to his feet with as much dignity as he could muster. The suit remained behind. 

"Sir," the valet inclined his head in cold dismissal and while he did not _flee_, he certainly stepped-lively from the room.

Erik stopped fluttering. Indeed, he smiled, briefly, to himself as he secured a chair under the knob of the bedroom door to prevent any more untimely interruptions. He'd gotten his tea, and he'd gotten his solitude. Which was all he really wanted.

He dressed quickly in the Vicomte's now slightly-wrinkled suit and surveyed his options. The house beyond the door was likely large and, as he'd never been inside before, his swiftest course would be to use an obliging drain pipe as a means of escape. A quick glance out the window proved that course the simplest. The position of the sun in the sky indicated that it was mid-morning. There might be a bit of a fuss from the street below, but so long as he was careful and did not do himself an injury, attracting more attention than he wanted, he could have the thing done in a trice. Amazing the swiftness with which one could enter the outside world when there was no significant effort required to cover or disguise the face. Best not to become too used to the sensation.

The window moved blessedly freely and was just wide enough to provide a satisfactory exit. The Vicomte's broad shoulders presented a slight difficulty of navigation and lugging around his unfamiliar bulk was a slight hindrance to making an elegant escape, but Erik managed it ably enough. Indeed, it was a pleasure to move oneself down the side of the building without any of the aches and pains common to inconvenient middle age.

Arrogance had ever been his undoing. No sooner had he scaled the modest fence keeping passers-by from getting too close to the property itself when his progress was hindered by an aghast cry of, "RAOUL!"

The Comte. Naturally. Doubtless informed by the harried valet that the young master had lost his mind. 

That was the face Erik recognized from the portrait, though now the jaw was sharp, the hair receding ever so_ slightly_ from that noble brow. And where once lapis-blue eyes had been soft and kindly, they were now flinty and cross. 

The man had dressed in haste - he was still wearing his house slippers, though he'd thrown a jacket on and his tie was almost straight. He was standing on the steps of the house, calling his brother in as though he was a disobedient dog. "Come back this instant! What are you - where are you - where is your _hat_?"

Erik ran a hand innocently over the Vicomte's tousled blonde locks, allowing himself the briefly regretful indulgence that it had been a decade or more since he'd boasted such a crown. And even then his hair had been inky black and unruly under the best of circumstances. A mere pat and it seemed the Vicomte's hair settled down more or less into an acceptable semblance of order.

"I must have mislaid it," Erik replied with an apologetic note in his voice, wide-eyed and would-be innocent. He attempted a disarmingly naive smile and an artless shrug. Unfortunately, it did not have the desired affect on the brother; indeed, the Comte only appeared to become more incensed. 

"Come here, _now_," he hissed through clenched teeth, narrow eyes darting about the street to see how much notice they'd attracted. "I need - I must speak to you about your comportment last night."

_Last night? _

Arrogance was Erik's principle folly, second only to curiosity. Better, he was sure, to go about his business...but given the soreness in his throat and a constant pounding in his head, he had to admit to a bit of curiosity to exactly what it was the Vicomte got up to when he wasn't having a go at innocently courting Christine. Might give him some information to pass along that she would be keen to know about. 

"Last night," Erik echoed ruefully, bringing a hand to his head, rubbing at the smooth skin of the Vicomte's brow. "I confess, brother, I'm...having the devil's own time conjuring up a fair picture of last night. It's all a bit of a blur just now."

Erik edged slightly closer to the Comte, but kept the bars between them, one hand wrapped loosely around the ironwork. The Comte would not deign to step out of the doorway into the morning sun. He did, however, raise his right hand, which was wrapped tightly around a telegram. 

"Well, bully for you," the Comte groused. "For I remember _all_ of it. And so does Alphonse, I'll have you know. I've just had a wire from him - the old miser is demanding financial restitution for the bodily injury he suffered last night - at _your_ hands - and the nerve tonic he was prescribed by his physician."

Bodily injury? Now _that_ was something. 

Erik made a show of looking down at the Vicomte's hands - unbloodied, unbruised, evidently uninjured. Whatever harm he'd caused must have been slight indeed, or else this mysterious Alphonse had the constitution of freshly-risen dough. '

"_I?_" he asked, apparently shocked. "I can't imagine - "

"Oh, for heaven's sake," the Comte interrupted him angrily. "Stop that...whatever this little pantomime is, this instant! I haven't the patience for it. I took you out as a particular favor, you'd do well to remember. You made _no_ effort to enjoy yourself. And then you lay flat one of my oldest friends - never mind his deficiencies of character and conversation. You'd do well to remember - "

Again, that anxious glance up and down the road. The Comte stopped himself. Lowered his voice. And his fair countenance went very dark indeed as he muttered, just low enough for Erik to care. "Remember your place. And that you have connections which are more important to honor than some fling with that Opera _tart_."

The pantomime was dropped. Not entirely voluntarily. Erik steadily looked at the Comte through his own narrow eyes and replied, just as quietly, "Christine."

"_Yes_," the Comte hissed. "Your single-minded infatuation with her is unbecoming. Unmanly. I was willing to indulge your childish inclination, but its all gone too far. It isn't as though you can _marry_ the girl - where are you going?"

Erik spun on his heel and faced the Comte. A devilishly wicked smile graced the countenance which he wore. The Comte's brow furrowed, then cleared, but not in relief. In understanding. As though he realized that the thing he was talking to - wearing his brother's face, clothes and looking at him with his brother's eyes - was not, in fact, his brother. 

"A single-minded infatuation might be unbecoming, _dear_ brother," Erik drawled, not caring to mind about his volume. "You certainly live by that principle, don't you? Ah! Speaking of Opera _tarts_, I heard a rumor - the lead ballerina will be absent for the latter half of the season. Going to the country to care for an elderly aunt, I've heard. Or was she going to be married? my head is _such_ a muddle just now. But Christine told me she was all a-twitter, going on about her trousseau, knitting little stockings for the baby - she likes Philippe, as a Christian name."

And then, as the last of the blood drained from the Comte's face, he set off at a quick step down the street, whistling gaily to himself as he went. Tellingly, the Comte did not call after him, urging him back. 

When he was a good distance from the house, Erik hailed a cab. Some of his prior merriment faded and he was reminded of why he'd gone underground in the first place. 

It was the people, you see. All about. The noise. The crowd. The damnable rushing. All with somewhere to go, here a peddler with children to feed, their calls becoming ever more shrill as the morning drew on and his cart remained full. A young woman fretfully twisting a ring about her finger, needing to call off some flirtation or other. A young man in a threadbare coat, regretfully making his way to a narrow apartment row, hesitating on the doorstep - prodigal returning home.

He noticed all of it. He _had_ to. Anyone might be a foe as easily as a friend. Everyone he passed must be assessed, analysed for threat. And even if, as today, they scarcely paid him a mind, he must notice. He was built that way. Had _made_ himself that way. Once, a world away in a land of palaces and jewels, and blood, such vigilance kept him alive. Now it only made him tired.

So he could not revel in the feeling of being one of the crowd - he was not. Always and forever set apart, regardless of any alteration in his appearance, be it natural or supernatural, paste and greasepaint or a grand cosmic joke. 

In the dark interior of the cab, he relaxed, marginally, separated from the rest of the world by wood, leather, and isinglass. 

"Where to?" the driver asked - rote, pleasant. Harmless. New gloves gripped the reins. He did a swift business.

"To the Opera," Erik ordered him, closing his eyes. "Quickly."


	4. Raoul & Erik

The exterior of the house was even more horrifying than the interior - it was not a _house_ at all, merely a well-constructed lean-to, built into rock walls undoubtedly underground. There was water beyond, foetid and yellow. The only conveyance was a moored rowboat that Raoul had his doubts about and so left alone when he discovered it.

Upon realizing he was effectively trapped underground, Raoul had gone from the study to the library to the drawing room (steadfastly avoiding the funereal bedroom) until he finally lay upon the chaise, for lack of any other occupation and let his mind give rise to all the terrible imaginings of what-might-be his heart could conjure.

He had visions of Erik-as-himself jogging up the stairs to Christine's flat, smartly rapping upon the door with Raoul's own silver-topped walking stick. Doubtless Robert, his valet, had him well-turned out and more dapper than Raoul had the patience to permit of a morning. Christine would greet him, surprised, but fetch her wrapper, hat, and parasol, consenting to a drive through the park. (Never mind the fact that he'd read a note in Christine's own hand confessing to feeling ill.)

Off they would go, Erik-as-himself chattering as suavely as he could about all manner of subjects musical, international, historical with more intellect than Raoul could muster. Christine would be surprised by the alteration in him, but too delighted with the results to question its source. Erik-as-himself would order the hansom to drop them off in a copse of cherry blossoms and Christine would descend the carriage, cheeks charmingly matching the color of the buds and flowers around them. (Never mind that it was autumn and the blossoms and their fruit gone the way of the summer sunshine.)

They would sit upon a park bench, watching the slow churn of the river. Perhaps Erik-as-himself would order a punt and they would drift off together. The beauty of their surroundings and the charm of her companion would make Christine relaxed and romantic. Then, Erik-as-himself would press his advantage. The scene behind Raoul's closed eyelids would make Gautier sit up and take notice. Erik-as-himself would set aside the oars. Christine would look at him under the rim of her hat, so prettily and sweetly. Really, could Raoul blame him from that which would come next. He would lean toward her. She would lean toward him. And then, under a blue-blue sky, in a haze of floral-scented beauty, on a calm riverbank they would -

_Thud._

An unexpected sound jolted him from his reverie. At first, he could not place its source and attributed the noise to rats in the walls...but the walls were crafted of stone. And whatever made that sound was _far_ too large to be a rat.

_Thud. Thud. Creeeeaaaaak._

The heart set to beating a rapid tattoo in the thin chest. Raoul sat up and traced it more easily now - it was coming from the one room in the whole of the place he'd not managed to get into. The metal door with its perpetually dark window which seemed to be locked from the inside.

A poker from the fireplace was his only defense. Raoul held it in long, twitching fingers and hoped-against-hope that whoever - whatever - was behind that door might be so startled by the unearthly visage it would be faced with upon exiting that it turned tail and fled before the poker need be used in self-defense. 

Light glowed from behind the window, but Raoul did not dare approach to look inside. Instead he held tight to the poker as the thumping sounded up again, rhythmically, against the door.

_Thud. Thud. Thud. _

The poker was as useless as Raoul hoped it might be; he dropped it to the floor with a grip gone slack when he was presented with the image of his own face frowning up at him in consternation. 

"Ah," he (or, rather, _he_) said mildly, beating a good quantity of dust from the knees and elbows of his suit. "There you are. And all in one piece as well. I meant to come sooner, but I was delayed. All for the best, really. It's past time I sealed up that trapdoor from the third cellar. Someone might fall in one of these days and do themselves a harm."

Raoul stared, stunned into silence. In the first place, it was alarming to see one's body up and ambulatory from the outside looking in, and in the second...well. It didn't quite fit in with his imaginings, did it? That Erik would turn this terrible situation to his own advantage and spend the day romancing Christine in a magical springtime not crawling about the cellars, prating on about trapdoors. 

He was afforded a glimpse of the room behind the metal door before Erik snuffed the light and shut the door tightly - something shone from inside, as though the room was full of silver or crystal or glass (the unsettling thought _Bluebeard_ flashed across his mind), but whatever he thought he'd seen was gone as quick as blinking.

Erik (yes, he must think of him as Erik, mustn't he, though he was wearing his face...after all, Raoul was still Raoul, wasn't he? _Wasn't_ he?) turned to regard him again and something unpleasant flitted across his expression. With a stifled sigh, he walked past Raoul into the drawing room where he started coaxing life into the cold fireplace. 

"A thousand apologies for the smoke," he said with his back to Raoul (he did not sound terribly apologetic). "I've yet to find an alternative to coal. So sorry you've had to go without a fire this long, but my man is on holiday."

Awkward silence descended. Raoul was canny enough to know he was being mocked, but not quick-witted enough to respond. Honestly, the fact that he had his wits about him at all under the circumstances was astonishing. 

"Aren't you going to say anything?" Erik asked him, one of Raoul's eyebrows rising in inquiry. "I'll have you know that you've been permitted to borrow one of the finest voices of the century and _the_ finest voice on at least two continents. Seems a pity to waste the chance - "

"Borrow?" Raoul echoed and Erik smiled - an altogether ghastly smile, too wide and stiff. If that was what Raoul himself looked like when he was happy, he would studiously attempt to cultivate a serious disposition. If, indeed, he was _himself_ again as Erik seemed assured he would be. "You...you know this?"

Erik shrugged, removing Raoul's jacket as he did so and folding it neatly over the arm of an armchair. "No. I am permitting myself an educated guess. This...incident, spontaneous and strange, though it may seem, is likely not without cause. Or conclusion."

"You aren't..." Raoul began disbelieving as Erik made himself quite comfortable (well, why wouldn't he, it was _his_ house) in the armchair and stretched his legs toward the fire. "You're awfully calm about all of this."

Erik chuckled, a low, slightly sinister sound that he was convinced would never have sounded from his throat under ordinary circumstances. "Of course. Why panic? I'm perfectly well and you - first impressions aside - are also perfectly well. What good would giving into hysteria do?"

He had a point, Raoul supposed, but the question of "giving in" seemed to him quite an involuntary thing when one found oneself experiencing the impossible. He said so too, but of course, Christine's own personal genius had some witty retort to make to_ that_ as well.

"Not impossible, as you see," he replied patiently. "Merely...incredibly unlikely. I'd rank this as the...third unlikeliest thing that's ever happened to me."

The sunken eyes, which were all the eyes Raoul had for the present, went wide as he stammered, "_Th...third?_ What were the first two?"

Erik waved a hand about carelessly, eyes on the fireplace. "Trite personal matters which are no concern of yours."

Then he had the audacity to close his eyes as though he was going to take a nap of all things and Raoul had the definite sensation that he was being dismissed. To what? To _where_? To stalk the basements like a spectre? To drift about in silence, moaning and wailing like a...like a...

"The Opera Ghost," he murmured, the beautiful voice he'd borrowed scarcely above a whisper. Erik did not open his eyes, but his previously slack posture stiffened. "It's not...some ridiculous flight of fancy of the ballet girls. Or a superstition of the managers. You're...you're _real._ But you're only a man - they leave you money!"

The last he shouted, rather indignantly. The Opera Ghost's salary, left in a pinned envelope in one of the better boxes by the concierge every month. Allegedly, if the Ghost's salary was neglected all manner of thing would go wrong upon and behind the stage. Philippe always rolled his eyes and assumed the box keepers and stagehands divided the spoils among themselves to buy liquor and chocolates and were responsible for any mischievous goings-on backstage. Now he suspected something more more nefarious was at play.

Erik opened one blue eye and cast it lazily upon him. "Pin money. I assure you, M. le Vicomte, I have plenty of my own small fortune privately squirreled away for a rainy day. Anyhow, I provide a service and I expect to be compensated for such."

"What service?" Raoul spluttered. "It's _blackmail_ to take fee on the promise of not engaging in devilish behavior! It's extortion!"

That strange, disturbing smile lit his face again. Raoul had the sense that, though he wasn't making a sound, Erik was laughing at him. 

"I am being compensated for good counsel," Erik informed him. "I have an exquisite ear and fine taste, if I may make bold to compliment myself. They benefit from it. Far better to be soundly told off for poor management and bad decision making in a few well-intentioned notes, benevolently meant to improve the Opera's art and reputation than hear about it from the newsapers once the production is mounted. Wouldn't you agree?"

Well, when he put it like_ that_ \- no. No! No, of course not! Though Raoul did not fancy himself a persuasive person (certainly he'd never been able to enact any sort of change of Philippe's heart on one particularly important subject), with his lips and tongue entirely under Erik's control, he found himself quite easily being led astray. Even his voice sounded different - richer, fuller, more attractive and, yes, more _persuasive_. 

_He has the voice of an angel, Raoul. Truly, he does. It's...I can't describe it to you. It's...oh, you must meet Erik, you really must. And hear him for yourself._

Had Erik _persuaded_ Christine, then? That he was a (presumably eccentric) musical genius who she could not possibly live without? He had no difficulty taking advantage of the national theatre. Why would he concern himself about taking advantage of a young, impressionable woman. _Oh, Christine..._

Raoul remembered the letters upon the table. The expressions of concern, the invitation to stay. What sort of creature was this man?

"Who is Émilie?" Raoul made bold to ask. He might be risking the man's ire, but it was a calculated risk. Erik was so calm, so in control. It was Raoul's only chance to get the upper hand, to show him that he was not some ignorant, stupid boy, to be manipulated like a marionette on strings.

Erik was out of the chair so fast, Raoul scarcely saw him move. He started toward him with such single-minded purpose that, alarmed, Raoul assumed he meant to strike him, but instead he stalked right past him toward the disordered desk.

"So, you've been poking around in my things," Erik said, hastily stacking the letters, even the crumbled up ones and locking them away in one of the drawers. "I suppose I can't blame you. Nor myself, come to that, for _no one comes here _without my say-so. That is also a personal matter, which is no concern of yours."

"But not 'trite'?" Raoul found himself asking sarcastically. Erik's shoulders hunched and his hands clenched, Raoul had struck a nerve, it seemed.

"Not trite," he replied shortly. 

"Does Christine know about her?" Raoul asked, bold in knowing that his assumption was correct. This Erik was a cad - a hideous, wretched, possibly insane cad who lived in a basement, but a cad all the same. 

"No, of course not," Erik scoffed - actually _scofffed!_ \- at him. "Whatever has it to do with her?"

Raoul's mouth dropped open in a rictus of horror (he could only imagine what the expression looked like to an outside observer and was oddly grateful he didn't have to see it). "To do with - are you so heartless? To engage the affections of a sweet, charming girl like Christine while some other woman waits for you to call? It's...it's monstrous, that's what it is! A betrayal of the gravest sort! It...it..."

But whatever else it was was lost as the words perished on Raoul's tongue. For Erik did a queer thing. He did not raise his hackles and defend his conduct. He did not plead for understanding. He did not dismiss Raoul's justifiable anger as flippantly as he had every other charge thus laid at his feet. 

He laughed. It was with Raoul's voice, but it was _not_ his own laugh. This was loud and harsh and grating. A cacophony of sound that made the anemic hairs on the back of Raoul's neck stand on end. He wished he'd brought the poker into the sitting room for the laughter itself sounded threatening. It went on and on until Erik-as-Raoul was fairly doubled over with it. It drowned out the crackle of the fire. It drowned out the beating of Raoul's heart. And then, just when it seemed like Raoul would be forever subjected to the droning, insane noise, it stopped.

* * *

Erik really hadn't meant to carry on so, but it had been ages - years, probably - since he'd had such a good laugh! Had the Vicomte not see himself? Or, if he hadn't gotten a good _hard_ look at the face he wore, had he not surmised? Ah, yes, that was he. A notorious breaker of hearts, a cad, a Don Juan for the modern age! Oh, it was just too, too funny.

But the Vicomte's poor, abused stomach had gone through too much vigorous exercise that morning to take too much of a pummeling now and Erik soon stopped laughing. He caught his breath, wiped the tears from his eyes and, still grinning, shook his head at the Vicomte.

"You're a comical fellow," he complimented him. "Christine's never said as much, though she does go on about your other virtues, quite at length too. Oh, but that was funny. I must thank you for the joke, _capital_ humor. My compliments."

The Vicomte furrowed his brow, the cogs visibly churning as he tried to sort out just what he'd said that Erik found so humorous. One marked advantage that Erik had over the rest of humanity was the fact that because he bore the face of the devil, it was rare that he actually had to_ look_ at it. If he had his charcoals and drawing papers at the ready he could have made quite a figure study just then: _Corpse In Deep Contemplation_. Then, _Corpse In Instant Of Discovery_.

"...but...but..." the Vicomte began. Erik took pity on him and waited for him to begin the long process of gathering his thoughts. The image of Cinderella and her lentils came to mind and he smiled again, but did not laugh. The Vicomte seemed to find the noise of it unpleasant. "If...well, who is Jérôme, then? I thought it was some pseudonym."

In a way, he was right and Erik probably ought to give him credit for working it all out. But in all ways that mattered, he was so wrong it hardly mattered. 

"Better to ask who Jérôme _was_," Erik replied. 

"Another 'trite personal matter,'" the Vicomte muttered petulantly. _Corpse In Imitation Of A Child Denied Sweets._

Erik's eyes darted back to the locked drawer. Letters from another lifetime and another world. Best forgotten, if he was wise. But he'd never been wise. Arrogant. Curious. And damnably sentimental for a man who professed no name, no home, barely a semblance of life. Like the worn out husk he resembled. Best buried and forgotten. But things kept calling him forth from the grave. _Lazarus, get up and walk._ Not the call of the Son of God, no, but other things. Little things. A melancholy wheeze of sound that could be trained to ring out gloriously and dazzle the concert halls of Europe. An old friend, comfortably holed up in an apartment on the Rue de Rivoli with beautiful green eyes and a welcoming embrace. And a determined correspondent who wanted a visit from a spectre.

"Jérôme was a very ugly little boy who ran away from home," Erik replied shortly, looking the Vicomte up and down. There were traces of Jérôme in the man before him. The harelip scar - _the ether made him sick and he woke up crying for his mother _\- the jughandle ears, passed down from father to son -_ 'It isn't as though Vincent can deny the little wretch is his, poor man. Poor boy.'_ \- there was even something innocent just now in the wicked yellow eyes - _'I know it's hot, dear heart, but do wear the mask for my sake, won't you? That way no one will say anything...silly when we go out.'_

The Vicomte evidently did not understand. "And you...knew him? Know him?"

"I knew him," Erik nodded wearily. "At one time, very well indeed."

"But he..." _Corpse In Abject Confusion_, "but this girl, this woman, this _Émilie_, writes to him as though he's still alive! Surely you ought to tell her if he's not!"

_'Can you play more quietly, son? Maman is resting. She needs to rest a good deal before the baby comes. Quiet and peaceful, the doctor said. Nothing to upset or excite her. We don't want anything to go wrong, do we?'_

"For her, he lives," Erik said decisively. "But only for her."

The Vicomte sank down to sit upon the settee in a slumped posture of despair; there, he was settling into his role nicely. _Corpse In Unsettled Repose._

"But just to set your mind at ease," Erik said, pulling out the desk chair and sitting on it, more to block the Vicomte's access to his personal things than anything else, "rest assured, I do not have any untoward _designs_ on Christine. As you so humorously supposed I did. She is my pupil. I flatter myself, my friend. But no more."

The Vicomte did not seem happy, exactly to hear this news. If anything, he seemed irked. 

"But whyever not?" he asked, affronted. "She's...so beautiful. And kind, and good, and...wonderful. Don't you think so?"

"Of course," Erik agreed. Christine was all things fair and lovely. But to the matter of love-making...his mind focused again on jade eyes, brown skin, and strong arms. "Beautiful and good. But her beauty does not move me in the same manner as it does you. I daresay there are some, even, who might pronounce her plain."

Life flared to life in the eyes and took them back into flashing wickedness.

"Never," the Vicomte declared passionately. "No one compares to her. No other woman _could_. Philippe ought to have realized that before he and his boorish friends..."

Erik was not aware that his face could cultivate a blush so deep and scarlet as the one he now saw gracing his cheeks. He assumed he didn't have enough blood for it. Turned out there were still things in this world that could surprise him. 

"Ah, yes," Erik nodded knowingly. "Alphone, was it? Made some asinine comment and you laid him flat for it? Bravo, monsieur. I admire that chivalrous spirit."

The petulant expression was back. "I most certainly did not lay him flat. I scarcely touched him! I ought to have had his hide for the things he said. What he _implied_. She's...an angel. She deserves to be thought well of."

The flush deepened to a darker hue of scarlet and there was a new sorrowful look about the face now. _Man In Deepest Regret._

Something jostled loose just then, in Erik's estimation of Christine's young man. Having not taken her up on her numerous entreaties to make the Vicomte's acquaintance, he formed an opinion of him not based on observation and fact, but mere conjecture. He was young, handsome, wealthy and well-connected. He knew how young men of the Victome's ilk treated young women like Christine. In her situation, Erik would have been wary. Kept his guard up. Protected himself from being used and discarded as so many girls of the stage were. But Christine insisted the Vicomte was all sincerity and goodness. That _he_ wasn't like that. _If only you'd meet him, I'm sure you'll love him as I do!_

Erik was skeptical of that. But he liked the young man's sincerity. And his willingness to turn pugilist in defense of his lady-love's honor. A trifle theatrical, to be sure, but Erik did so _love_ the theatre.

"Well, now," Erik said, more softly and thoughtfully addressing Christine's young man than he had up until now. "I'm sure she'll forgive you, whatever uncharitable thoughts you might have been harboring when you thought I was some rival for her affections. I'm sure you've realized by now what I poor rival I would be, in any case."

Further proof or Raoul's inherent good nature shone through as he stammered and stumbled over his tongue, trying in vain to argue that Erik was not some sort of monstrous abomination, a hideous spectacle of what happened to God's creation when He had His back turn. _Fearfully and wonderfully made...well, _fearfully_ is right enough..._

"Christine adores you," Raoul admitted finally, when a kind assessment of Erik's physical being failed him. "She talks about you all the time, how intelligent you are, how witty, how many places you've been. I was quite...quite jealous, at times."

This time, Erik did not laugh at Raoul's absurd statement. It wasn't funny. Merely astonishing. Erik shook his head and said nothing; rare that it happened, but every so often, words failed him.

"You could..." Raoul spoke into the silence, but reconsidered his words. "It's only...I wonder at your coming directly here. When you might...when you..."

"When I am 'adorned in borrowed plumes,' as it were?" Erik supplied for him. Raoul gave an embarrassed nod of acknowledgement. "No. It's not...hmm. It's difficult to say. To explain, I mean. You've never known what it is to be an unwanted thing. For people to shrink away at your approach. It develops a certain...innate response over time. One that isn't easily shaken off."

"Well, I..." Raoul began, then swallowed visibly, eyes dropping to regard the floor. "I know. I bit, I mean. Especially when I was...small. I look - it's said that I look - like my mother. I don't remember her. It was my birth that killed her. And so...sometimes, years ago, people would...edge away from me, a bit. Not quite look me in the eyes. As though I was some omen of ill fortune. I had a cousin who was expecting a child, once. I think I was six? I went to kiss her cheek, but her mother stopped me. Turned me away. Told me not to touch her. As though I was cursed. My sisters said not to mind about it, only my aunt was a superstitious old biddy. They assumed I'd forget. But I didn't." 

One small cruelty might not seem to compare to a lifetime of similar or worse treatment. Still. The fact that it was small did not make it any less cruel. 

"Was your father unkind to you?" Erik asked, curious. He assumed the Vicomte would refuse to speak on the matter anymore, but he was more open than Erik would have assumed.

"Oh, no, my father loved me very much," Raoul replied at once, a note of surprise in his tone, as though it was odd Erik would think otherwise. "He...he said to me that he was grateful God let him have me. I was...born in my parents' middle age. They didn't think they would have another after my second sister. My father said my mother loved me long before I was born. And he loved me after."

What a lovely thing to say. Enough to make a sentimental person go teary-eyed. 

It was Raoul's turn to be curious. "Did your parents - "

Erik turned away and opened the desk drawer, removing a pack of freshly filed cards. "Would you care for a spot of amusement? To wile away long hours underground?"

"A card game?" Raoul asked, surprised.

Erik shook his head, "Card tricks. I happened to be an illusionist of some renown - retired. Forgive me some clumsiness, for my best tools are unavailable to me, just at present, but this will pass the time."

The short-fingered, clumsy hands he was currently possessed of could still manage a bit of cardistry. A simple flourish caught the Vicomte's notice and any questions pertaining to Erik's personal life and history were quickly forgotten, or at least, brushed away. 

Erik dragged the desk chair over to the settee and spread the deck in his hands, looking up into his own miserable countenance from below. He smiled at himself in a wan, cunning way.

"Pick a card," he urged.

Raoul chose the card Erik had already selected for him. "You...you don't happen to have a drop of something stronger than water, do you?"

"I do," Erik nodded, shuffling and cutting the deck very precisely as he waited for Raoul to return his selection. "But you shan't have a drop of it. I woke up in the most atrocious state this morning and I'll be damned if I'll do so again tomorrow. Is this your card?"

Of course, it was. There was never a chance it wasn't. _Corpse In Imitation Of Child-Like Wonder._

"How did you do that?" Raoul asked. 

"Oh, just a bit of dumb luck," Erik replied. "Mightn't be so successful this time. But you never know. Occasionally lighting strikes twice. Pick a card. If my excellent humor keeps up, I might very well tell you how it's done."


End file.
